David Bailey: this is what 100 looks like

Three score and 10 may be the span of a man, but no one has broken the news to David Bailey who, at 76, still behaves like someone turning one score and eight. Last month he walked into a studio in London (not his: too many stairs) to photograph some of Britain’s oldest people. The youngest was just 100; the oldest 107. Dressed in a baggy polo shirt and a pair of old combat trousers, small but physically imposing, Bailey flirted, flattered, insulted his subjects in order to get the picture he wanted. “We’ve been married for 62 years,” Shirley Arkush told Bailey of her husband David, one of the centenarians waiting to be photographed. “Same as me,” he replied, “but not to the same wife.” And he gave a combative, high-pitched laugh. (Bailey’s marriage to his first wife, Rosemary Bramble, lasted three years, and his second, to Catherine Deneuve, two; he was married to Marie Helvin for 10 years, before marrying Catherine Dyer in 1986.)

In the background, three good-looking, young assistants arranged screens, spotlights and a camera tripod, and seemed careful not to put a foot wrong, while Bailey chatted to each new arrival. He is a photographer first and nosy interviewer a close second. “How old was your mum when she died?” he asked one subject, trying to work out if there are genetic predictors to longevity. Bailey’s mother, Gladys, who brought him up with his aunt Dolly after his father walked out, died in her 90s.

He worked at an incredible pace – nine portraits in four hours, and on subjects with a collective age of 917 years. “I’ve always wanted to photograph old people,” he said at one point, after pinning one centenarian in forensic close-up (he had requested no makeup, only “a tidy-up” for the women).

Not everyone was happy. Joe Britton, 103, Chelsea Pensioner and horseracing enthusiast, said he knew Bailey and had been looking forward to seeing him again. But, “That’s not David Bailey,” he said with disappointment after the shoot – his David Bailey is the horse trainer.

Fauja Singh, 103, former farmer and marathon runner

Fauja Singh was born in Bias Pind, in the Punjab, India, where his father was a farmer. He married Gian Kaur in 1928 and was widowed in 1992. He has four surviving children, Jaswinder, Parminder, Sukhjinder and Harvinder (his daughter Gurbash died after giving birth to her third daughter in 1977; his son Kuldip was killed in 1994). After moving to England, he ran the 2000 London Marathon – his first – at 89. He lives with Sukhjinder, who runs a plumbing business, in Essex. (Fauja doesn’t speak English, so his story is translated by Harmander Singh, his friend and former trainer.)

I couldn’t walk until I was five. My legs were so spindly, I was nicknamed “danda” [stick]. I couldn’t even walk a mile at 15. Perhaps it was the Almighty’s way of preserving them for later.

I was close to my aunt. Her husband died during the plague and she wanted someone to look after, so I went to live with her. Because I had been so weak, I was indulged and became naughty and spoiled. I used to push other children around, thinking nobody was going to believe them if they complained.

I worked for many years as a farmer. It was a tough life and I spent my time tilling the land with oxen. By my 80s, all was going well. I had bought a tractor and rented more land. In August 1994 there were strong monsoon winds and Kuldip, my middle son, who was living with me, went to check on his new venture – a roadside restaurant being built near our house. The wind picked up the corrugated iron sheeting from the roof and flung it at his head, killing him instantly.

I was devastated. You love all your children equally, but I had a special bond with Kuldip, since my other children had moved abroad. I’d sit in the cemetery and say, “God, why didn’t you take me instead?” Friends said the only way to save me was to get me away from the village, so Sukhjinder brought me here to forget.

At first I didn’t like it. I was bored. I’m a very fidgety person and can’t sit still. Sukhjinder’s always taking things away from me, like the phone cord, bits of paper, saying stop fiddling. Then I started socialising in the Sikh temples and there were these tournaments, with running, wrestling and kabaddi – it reminded me of being in India. I used to challenge OAPs to 100m sprints, then we doubled the distance. I started running for charity, for cancer research, 5k and 10k, and built up.

Back in India, I would play “chase the rooster” [a rooster is let loose and you have to catch it], and that got you sharp. But that was not competitive. One year of serious training with Harmander turned me into an athlete. Of course, running used to hurt a lot, but it distracted me from my grief; the fact that it gave me health, recognition and helped others is what kept me going.

I retired last year after competing in a 10k run in the Hong Kong Marathon. [Singh’s last full marathon was London in 2004; he achieved a personal best of five hours 40 minutes in the 2003 Toronto Waterfront Marathon at 92.] I ran it in 93 minutes. My best time was 64 minutes, and Harmander thought it was a signal I shouldn’t do any more. I know I’m getting weaker but my mind and spirit are still strong. I used to run or jog 10 miles a day. Now I do the same, but walking and maybe some jogging.

I only eat in moderation and that has contributed to my long life. In poor countries, people die of starvation; in rich countries, people die from overeating. For breakfast I have toast, a cup of tea and half a bowl of hot crushed alsi pinni [an Indian sweet made from flaxseed, nuts, wholemeal flour and jaggery cooked in clarified butter]. If you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything. Without it, your wealth, bungalow and big car are meaningless. My only extravagance is clothes and shoes. I have 50 pairs of shoes and eight pairs of trainers. I like to look dapper.

Eileen Symonds, 100, former model

Eileen Symonds was born in the City of London, where her father ran a pub before going into the refrigeration business. She married Bernard (“Bim”) in 1938 and was widowed in 1993. She has three daughters, Angela, 75, Caroline, 72, and Laura, 67, nine grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.

My mother was wonderful, she was young, very pretty and had lovely auburn hair. She was a little bit plump but she had a great personality and that’s the main thing.

When I was a little girl, I was a very good ballet dancer, very good on pointe. My father was in the Masonics and occasionally I’d be asked to dance at one of their dos. I suppose I was rather good at it. But when I was 11 it was decided I should go to boarding school, and of course they don’t do ballet at boarding school, so I had to give it up.

My brother was the apple of everybody’s eyes. He was very good-looking, a very good boy. I wasn’t. I was rather grizzly and naughty, and not so nice. When I left school at 16 or 17, my mother got me into a couturier’s in Conduit Street and I went there as a runabout. The house models were six foot, slim, and they used to glide down the catwalk and glide back again. I was a plump schoolgirl, and I used to think they were so beautiful. And then I must have dieted a bit and thought, I could do this – not there, because I was only five foot six, but I modelled for a Jewish chap, the kindest old fellow you ever knew, mostly coats and costumes because I had a good pair of square shoulders. And of course you always had to have good posture.

London before the war was wonderful. If you had a boyfriend, you’d go to a Lyons Corner House, which was very bright and gay, and I’d have a salad. Bernard was the brother of someone I knew well at school. The first time I met him, I didn’t fall head over heels in love. He didn’t look anything very ravishing. But he was nice, a very good man. He was already engaged to a girl called Agnes. But he must have taken a bit of a shine to me because he’d meet me from work and we’d go to one of the Corner Houses.

One evening he showed me Agnes’s engagement ring and the waitress came rushing over and said, “Oh! Congratulations!” And I said, “It isn’t for me, it’s for his fiancee.” “Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry, I thought it was for you two. You always come in here together.” Anyhow, he proposed to me a couple of months later and we got married in 1938. I knew Agnes a bit. She wouldn’t have been right for him. Not go-ey enough. She was clever, a schoolteacher, one of those. Didn’t suit him.

My mother was widowed at 52 and lived with us until she died at 98. I think my husband would have been happy if she hadn’t been around, because I spent a lot of time looking after her. But on the other hand she was wonderful, because if I did go out, she was there to look after the girls. You can’t have it both ways.

I like a drink and I smoke about five cigarettes a day. Wine goes acid on me, and the only drink I really enjoy is whiskey and ginger ale. I have that twice a day, one before lunch and one before dinner. One of the saddest things is not being able to drive any more. I had a prang at 98. It wasn’t my fault but the car was messed up, and that was the end, really.

Your looks go as you get older – it’s nature. It’s no good being sad about it. Fortunately I’ve got good teeth and hair. My daughters are the same. They’ve got lovely teeth, all of them.

Michael Klanga, 107, former owner of a delicatessen

Michael Klanga was born, the youngest of 12, in a small village near Nicosia in Cyprus, where his father was a farmer. He married Maria in 1934 and moved to the UK in 1956 with his seven children, Andrew, 79, Kosta, 77, Chris, 75, Helen, 73, George, 71, Charlie, 68, and Irene, 65. Widowed in 1993, he has 17 surviving grandchildren (his grandson Christopher was killed on a zebra crossing, aged 14) and 21 great-grandchildren. Michael has dementia, so Irene tells his story.

My father was nearly 50 when he came to England. He was a farmer in Cyprus, growing tomatoes and cucumbers; we had goats and sheep, and made our own cheese. But it was a hard life. In those days you had to have a guarantor to come here. You couldn’t just show up. My uncle sponsored us. He had a classy French restaurant in Soho called Epicure, and my daddy used to work in the kitchen and as a waiter.

He opened MC Klanga delicatessen on Camden Road in 1962 when he was 55. He sold olives, cheeses, fruit, everything. He never learned to speak English, but he knew all the English words for things in his shop. He worked with Greek people, mixed with Greek people. He retired in his mid-70s. The shop is still there, now called The Green Door Food Bazaar.

My mum was the quiet one. Dad liked the good life, going out to the Greek cafes and bars down Holloway Road. He liked drinking, dancing, singing – he had a fantastic voice. Every time someone had a wedding in the village back home, they used to invite him to sing. When Mum died, he came to live near me. Even when he was 100, he’d get the train and bus on his own to see his friends.

His mother lived to 104, and if you asked him why he’s lived so long, he’d probably say it was the drinking. He loves red, dry wine. He drank wine with every meal right up until last year. But we stopped it six months ago because he gets dizzy spells and now the care home trick him with Ribena.

He never learned to drive. He could drive a tractor in Cyprus, so assumed he could drive here. He had two lessons and failed the test, and the instructor got out of the car and said he’d never drive with him again.

At first he didn’t want to move into the care home. Anyone who visited, he’d say: “If I give you some money, will you get me some paper bags so I can pack my stuff?” Now he loves it. He thinks he’s in a hotel in Cyprus.

David Arkush, 100, former dentist

David Arkush was born in Glasgow, the youngest of five, to Polish Jewish immigrants. He lives in London with Shirley, 83, his wife of 62 years, and attends Jewish Care’s Michael Sobell Community Centre, in Golders Green, north London. He has two children, Jonathan, 60, and Deborah, 58, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

My father was a rabbi. He said, you’ll never be a businessman, so you’d better be a professional. He didn’t have a very high opinion of any of his children. He was quick-tempered and tended to lash out. He wasn’t a terribly nice man.

I was close to my mother. I used to sit on her knee late at night, while my father was at the synagogue, and she’d sing this song to me about a son who left home and went to America, and before he went, she sang to him, in Yiddish, “Write a letter to your mother, do not forget to write to me.” But his heart was hard and he never wrote. When I left home, we always wrote to each other – the whole family kept up a correspondence.

I’d have liked to have gone to Oxford or Cambridge to read modern languages, but in those days they thought, what sort of job is that? My father’s brother-in-law was a dentist, so I went to the dental school at Liverpool University.

As soon as the war broke out, I felt it was my duty to volunteer. I joined the Royal Army Dental Corps when I was 25 and was posted to Singapore. I was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and kept at Changi prisoner of war camp in Singapore. Later, I was put on a cattle truck and transferred to camps in Thailand.

The Japanese were all right to me, because I was useful – they didn’t have any dentists. They knocked up a chair that was usable, and I had some kit. I didn’t have a drill. I had hand instruments and some local anaesthetic; zinc oxide and oil of cloves makes a temporary filling which is really not bad. I remember treating one Japanese patient, and I was bashing away at his teeth and suddenly his hand went down to his sword and I thought, go easy, David, you want to get home. I treated them more gently after that.

My parents didn’t know for 18 months whether I was alive or dead, and it upset my father very much. Then one of his congregants phoned to say he’d heard that I was a PoW, and he had a stroke while he was on the phone. He was alive when I came home in the autumn of 1945, but in a bad way and died soon after. When I saw my mother, she cried and flung her arms around me. She died when she was 91.

I set up my first practice in Edgware, Middlesex. I found an empty building and my brother lent me £100 to buy secondhand equipment. I met Shirley in a hotel in Bournemouth in 1950. I had a beautiful powder-blue car and none of her boyfriends had a car.

I’m not good with money. Shirley always said I never charged enough. She says I’m too good-natured and left all the disciplining of the children to her. But we didn’t have to use much: they were lovely, our children. I adored them.

I retired when I was 70, and it was a relief. I never liked being a dentist. I didn’t like looking into people’s mouths. I used to like opera concerts and visiting stately homes. Now I like sleeping and Shirley’s fried halibut. She’s a very good cook.

Maud Ford MBE, 100, former administrator

Maud Ford was born in north London, the eighth of nine children. She married Stephen, a plumber, in 1934, and was widowed in 1998. She has a daughter, Janet, 75, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, and has lived in sheltered housing since 1985.

I was born in Hornsey a century ago, but you can still see St Mary’s, the big church where my dad worked on the bell tower. I used to take him lunch from home in an open bowl covered with a red handkerchief and he’d say, “Here comes my little fairy.”

He had a bad chest, and later couldn’t work. He stayed home and did the cooking, and Mum worked as a cleaner and took in washing. She’d wash it overnight and iron it, and take it back the next day. Women worked hellish hard in those days.

I liked school, but left at 14 to help my parents. My first job was checking banknotes at the Bank of England printing works. They’d come in reams of 500 and we’d go through them quickly to find smeared numbers or print on the Queen’s face. A woman on a high chair in the corner watched to make sure we didn’t steal. When I got married at 19, I had to leave.

I ran a sweet shop for years. The bestsellers were coconut mushrooms at tuppence a quarter. We used to get one or two men who’d come in after they’d been drinking, to kill the smell of the pub. Mints, mostly.

I was working at the Whittington hospital as a clerk in 1965 when I was asked to run a new unit, the Bed Bureau, to find a hospital bed for anybody who needed it. We had a huge chart with every bed marked with a pin: when the bed was empty, we’d take the pin out. I couldn’t believe it when I was nominated for an MBE [for her work there]. I was thrilled to meet the Queen. I wore a pink floral skirt and a pink jacket. I retired a year later, in 1979, at 65.

The saddest thing about getting old is you gradually lose bits of yourself. Your friends, brothers and sisters (I’m the only one left), your mobility. I used to meet my daughter and we’d go shopping or have coffee. We used to like Selfridges. But I can’t go now because of my legs.

The secret to a long life is taking things lightly, not worrying too much. Everyone has worries, but some people make theirs bigger.

Violet Butler, 100, former store supervisor

Violet Butler was born, the oldest of three, in London, where her father managed a gentlemen’s outfitters. She married William in 1939 and was widowed in 1944. She has one surviving son, Colin, 69 (Bruce died in 2007, aged 65), six grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

Mothers never told you the facts of life then. You heard things whispered at school and I didn’t believe half of it. I’m damn sure when I had my first child, I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. I was in the Middlesex hospital and the bombs were falling, and they just shoved me in a room and said, if you feel bad, breathe into this [gas and air]. It was quite a shock.

I clicked with my father. He was from the farming side of the family, more down-to-earth. My mother was more church. She didn’t have a lot to say, but she was a good mother. I was plump, not very special as a child. I liked school and fancied going into politics, as a Conservative. But we hadn’t much money, so at 14 I started working in the shop, like it or not.

I met William at a dance. He was 6ft 4in, so I called him Big Ben. He proposed at the top of the stairs in my parents’ house. Bruce was born in 1942, Colin 18 months later. My husband came home for the christening, so he knew he had sons.

They found his body on 19 June 1944, but it took a year for his identity to be confirmed. I’d been told he was missing after the D-day landings, and for a year I still hoped he’d turn up. He’s buried at Tilly-sur-Seulles in Normandy; it’s graves everywhere.

I was 29 and had five shillings to my name. The army gave me a payment to tide me over. I’d worked at Marks & Spencer before I had the boys, so when Colin was five I went back. I became a supervisor and was still one when I retired at 60.

I never remarried. I had offers, but the boys came first. The biggest compliment I’ve ever had was when my son said, “Mum, you were always there.” I’ve never regretted it. You get lonely sometimes, but I’ve worked and kept healthy, although now I’m taking too many damn pills. I’m no paragon. I used to smoke and drink, but not to excess. If anything goes wrong, I want to die quickly. If I go funny, I don’t want to live on.

Joe Britton, 103, former fusilier and engineering inspector

Joe Britton was born in east London, one of four children, to a father who was a deep sea diver in the navy. He married Dorothy, a factory inspector, in 1956, and was widowed in 1989. He has lived at the Royal Hospital Chelsea since 1994.

We never saw our father. He was away all the time. Very hard man. They wouldn’t put up with him these days. You’d say, “Can I go out, Dad?” And he’d say, “You don’t want to play out in the streets.” On the other hand, he never got drunk. He’d go and play darts, perhaps in the British Legion. He played cards, brilliant, he was. That’s where I get it from. I play bridge.

I was a little sod as a boy, always fighting. Once I took on the bully of the school. “You want some trouble?” I said. Boom! God, did he knock me out. When I was 14, I was a butcher’s boy. I’d deliver meat, and when I was about 18 or 19 I fell in love with this girl on my round. She was the housekeeper for an Italian vet. We got engaged, but when it came to getting married, her family wouldn’t sign. If you were under 21 and you hadn’t got permission, that was it. So she flew away and I joined the army. She broke my heart.

When I joined up, this bloke pushed me, so thwack! Seven days confined to barracks. That’s how I ended up boxing for the army. They came up and said, “So you like fighting.” I said, “Yes, I do.” I boxed for the army at the Royal Albert Hall in 1933. I was good.

I’d done five and a half years in India when the war broke out. I was with the Royal Fusiliers doing guard duties in Delhi and Jhansi, and was due to come home on 10 October 1939. But the trumpet blew in September and the whole fourth Indian division sailed for Egypt. I was a dispatch rider in the desert, but I never took part in any fighting.

In 1940 I joined the Liaison Regiment, a secret reconnaissance outfit known as Phantom. They chose me because I could drive any vehicle and shoot any weapon. I was in the A squadron, and the actor David Niven was also in A squadron. He was smashing. He said to me, “Who do you fancy in Hollywood, Joe?” I said, “Dorothy Lamour.” He said, “I’ll see to it.” I got a 6ft photograph of her, “To Joe, love from Dotty.”

I had a bad crash in 1944. I hit a patch of mud and the bike left me. I went up in the air, bang, fractured my spine and pelvis. I was in hospital for three months and they told me I’d never walk again.

I didn’t get married until after the war. She was a London girl, cockney like me. All mouth and trousers. She was hyped, like a bloody strip hammer. The Hoover even came out on Christmas Day. We were married for 33 years and she died in five hours. She just complained of pain one night. We were sitting watching the box, and a doctor came and sprayed under her tongue. I said, “Is she going to be all right in the night?” He said, “Oh yeah. Tell her doctor that I suspect angina.” A quarter of an hour later, she went pop.

I own a horse in a syndicate, Ximbama, and bet on the horses every day. I go on the mobility scooter to Ladbrokes, round the corner. Today I’ve bet on eight horses, £1 each way. The most I’ve ever won is £687, when four horses came in.

Anything makes me happy, especially getting people into trouble. When breakfast is late, I get hold of my spoon and go bang! Bang! I’m a stirrer, and I can’t get out of the habit.

• Joe Britton died on 27 October, shortly after the print version of this feature went to press.

Edith “Edie” Cashman, 103, and Emily Crotty, 101, both former factory workers

Edith “Edie” Cashman was born in Islington, one of eight, to a father who was a bus driver. She married Frederick, an antique dealer, in 1937 and was widowed in 2001. She has a daughter, Carol, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Emily Crotty is Edie’s sister. She married Tom, a factory foreman, in 1940, and was widowed in 1970. She has a daughter, Val, one grandchild and two great-grandchildren.

Edie We’ve always been a close family and there’s a lot of us left. My brother is 81, my sister is 87 and the other sister is 91. I don’t think there’s any secret. Just plain living and plain food. Sunday roasts used to be a regular, then just ordinary stews and steak and kidney pies.

My mum was just lovely – looked after the children, we had her mother living with us. But I wasn’t close to my dad. He used to drink.

Emily and I were always close. I’m the nervous type, she’s more outgoing. But I was more with it – I’d take control. We used to play in the street, hide and seek and skipping. Mum would call us and we’d run away because we knew she was going to give us a pram with a baby in it.

I left school at 14 and went to work for a little while at the Gordon’s gin foundry, where Emily worked. We were in charge of putting labels on the bottles. I used to be scared of the forelady, Flo McCarthy. If it got too hot, then all the glue would come off the labels and they wouldn’t go on the bottles. She’d shout if you asked her for more glue. I was very happy when she left and Emily became the forelady.

My happiest time was when I got married at 27. A friend made my dress and four bridesmaid dresses. It was thick smog. I had a white velvet dress with a train, and by the end it was brown. No one could see us come out of the church.

Fred was an antique dealer in glass and china, but we didn’t have any in our house. If I did like something, when I looked the next week, it would be gone, sold. He was a crew fitter in the Royal Air Force during the second world war, but didn’t fight because there was something wrong with his foot. We didn’t know what, but it was a lucky escape. One night there was heavy bombing in London. We were all in the air-raid shelter in the garden, and Fred was in the street knocking at the front door, and we couldn’t hear him. The incendiaries were dropping all around him. It was Tom, Emily’s husband, who let him in. But he would never go into the shelter. He stayed in the house. Always.

Emily was only 56 when Tom died. It was a big shock. He was such a confident man and he was her world, so one half of her had gone, really. She came to live with us and used to look after herself upstairs. She came down at tea time and we’d watch television together, and then she’d go back up. She did try to live alone but it wasn’t for her.

Emily Mum was 93 when she died. Dad was 68, because he used to drink. It killed him. He wasn’t violent. Actually, if he’d had a drink, that was the only time we saw him smile.

I was 19 when I went to work at Gordon’s and stayed until I was 29. All that gin, and I never came home tipsy. We were particularly interested in the cocktail range – Bronx and Manhattan. If they were being made during the day, we’d sneak a drop.

I met my young man there, a foreman and stock controller. He was only little, about five foot six, but he was a lovely man. One year, when I was in my 50s, he gave me a fur coat. It came in this big box. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Real fur!

The worst thing about Gordon’s was Flo McCarthy. No talking! Look at your labels! Nobody liked me when she left because then I was the boss.

Losing Tom was terrible. I didn’t like his family, so I moved in with Edie. We were always close. She’s got one child, I’ve got one child. It was quite difficult for us to conceive and we were older mums.